Irish Improv

Here is a great improv to do for St. Patrick’s Day, but Irish music is great at any time of year, so there’s no need to limit it to March! Many of my early students have never played in 6/8 time, so this is a great opportunity to talk about time signatures.

Irish Improv How to Use:

Demonstrate the pattern.
Teach it by rote. Repeat until the student is confident.
Have the student play the pattern while you make up a melody above it using the notes of the A minor scale.
Switch parts.

Variations:

Change the key signature. Any minor scale will work. But you could also try it in major. Does it still sound Irish?
Add grace notes to the melody. Irish music is big on grace notes, which many students have never played. They can even use notes outside of the scale (black notes) and quickly slide off them onto the scale notes.
Accelerando. Some Irish music starts slow/moderately but at the end gets faster and faster for a dramatic finish. If you do this, add a crescendo as well.
Vary the pattern. The pattern doesn’t have to be static. As written the four notes in each measure jump from the lower octave up to the higher octave and then from the higher octave down to the lower octave. You could try it with the same rhythm but jump from low to high and then low to high again. You could also change the quarter notes into to two eighth notes.
Instead of making up the melody, try it with a lead sheet.

Gently Falling Snow Improv

Generally, we play with the melody in the treble clef and leave the accompaniment to the bass clef. This improv is a good one to show that it doesn’t have to be like that.

Gently Falling Snow Improv

How to Use:

Demonstrate the pattern.
Teach it by rote. Advanced students should do it with just the right hand, but even beginners can learn it using two hands. Repeat until the student is confident.
Have the student play the pattern while you make up a melody below it using the notes of the C major scale.
Switch parts.

Variations:

Change the key signature. The pattern is essentially just a scale, so students who have learned scales should be able to figure it out. Try it in minor for a very different effect.
Change the articulation. If you play it staccato, does it still remind you of gently falling snow? Or is it more like hail?
Change the octave. Which octave sounds the best?
Instead of making up the melody, try it with a lead sheet.

Spin the Bottle on Lead Sheets

Everybody loves Christmas music, but some of the students just aren’t ready for reading them. Here’s a fun way to incorporate a lot of Christmas music into a lesson, regardless of the student’s level. Naturally, you could do this at any time of year with other lead sheets.

What You Need:

Christmas lead sheets, such as:
- Angels We Have Heard on High in C, G, D, F
- Deck the Halls in C, G, D, and F
- Jingle Bells in C, G, D, or F
- Oh, Come All Ye Faithful in C, G, D, and F
- Silent Night in C, G, D, F
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas in C, G, D, and F
A bottle

Setup:

Lay the lead sheets out on the floor in a circle, with the bottle in the middle.
- I put out a stack for each song, with all key signatures in the stack, but that’s optional.

How to Play:

Have the student spin the bottle. Whichever page it points to is your lead sheet for the round.
Depending on the level, you can do one of the following:
- Student plays root note only. Teacher plays the melody.
  - Teacher may need to point to each measure to keep the student on track.
- Student plays root chord only. Teacher plays the melody.
- Student plays a basic pattern, such as oom-pa-pa or Alberti bass. Teacher plays the melody.
- Student makes up their own accompaniment pattern. Teacher plays the melody.
- Student sight reads the melody. Teacher plays an accompaniment.
- Student plays the melody with root chords below.
- Student plays the melody with an accompaniment pattern below.
When you’ve gone through the song, spin again for another one.

Variations:

Most of the variation comes in what part you have the student play, but you can also make it harder or easier by controlling the key signature. My beginners played only in C major. My more advanced started in C major, but if they spun the same song twice, the second time I changed the key.

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Motif Game

A musical motif is a device that most of my students don’t arrive at naturally. It needs explanation, and here is a great way to do it.

What You Need:

These cards, printed and cut up
A die
Game Pieces

Setup:

Remove any cards you don’t want to use.
Starting with “Start,” lay the cards out face down on the floor like a board game. You can make loops and swirls and short cuts to make it more interesting. End with the “Finish” card.
Place your two game pieces on Start.

How to Play:

First explain the concept of a motif.
- A motif is a very short musical idea. (Two measures maximum for this game.)
- For example, the first line of “Twinkle, Twinkle,” the first measure of the “Imperial March” from Star Wars, the first four notes of Beethoven’s 5th symphony, etc.
- Our ears like repetition, but they also get bored. Composers use motifs to create melodies by modifying their motif just enough that it stays interesting, but not so much that we can’t identify it as the same motif.
Both the student and the teacher need to come up with a motif in the key of C major. Keep it simple. Make the student play their idea several times until they can remember it consistently. When he can reliably play it back, he’s ready to play.
The student rolls the die and advances his game piece that many cards forward. Then he needs to return to the piano and play his same motif, but with the modifications specified on the card (i.e., with a different key, tempo, rhythm, etc.)
- Some modifications are easier than others. You can keep score by assigning points for difficulty. Or you can ignore scores and just play to see who gets to finish first.
The teacher takes a turn with her own motif.
The first one to the finish line wins. (Or the one who collects the most difficulty points wins, if you are playing with points.)

Variations:

To make it easier, only place out the easiest cards, such as dynamic changes and changing one note.
To make it harder, remove the easier cards, such as dynamic changes and changing one note.
To make it spookier, create your motif in A minor and remove all the cards that have major key signatures.

Motif Game

Black Cat Strut (Improv)

The black cat strut is not my own activity. It comes from 88 Piano Keys. My students enjoyed it so much this year, I wanted to remember it, plus a few notes from my experience.

As she recommends, I didn’t show my students anything. It was entirely done by memory and ear.
For the youngest students, you can give them just three melody notes: C, D, E.
More advanced students can handle all the ones she mentions in the instructions.
If the student hasn’t learned dotted quarter note rhythms yet, just explain the left hand pattern as a dotted half note and a quarter note.
I don’t have iRealPro, so I didn’t use her recorded drum beat. It’s a great improv even without it.